Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), who played a key role in shaping the environmental legislation of the modern era, has announced he will retire. As he represented the auto industry in his Detroit district, that environmental legacy was mixed.

"WASHINGTON — No member of the House has served as long as Representative John D. Dingell, Democrat of Michigan. So it resonated when Mr. Dingell announced on Monday that he would not seek re-election to a seat he has held since the Eisenhower administration in part because the institution he once revered had become “obnoxious,” riven by acrimony and marked by lack of productivity.

“There is going to be a lot of blaming and finger-pointing back and forth, but all of us are at fault,” Mr. Dingell said in remarks to a chamber of commerce in Michigan, adding: “The enormous expense of money made by people in the course of the campaign has not been well spent in the interest of the public, of the Congress of the country.”

Mr. Dingell, the longest-serving member of Congress in history and a legislative power broker and deal maker on health and energy policy for decades, was the first of more than two dozen mainly veteran lawmakers exiting the House and Senate to be so explicit in blaming partisan tensions and a dearth of accomplishment for his departure."